The five sorcerer's stood atop Fushiguro's shadow spanning the surface of the water as a man plunged through the opening, relishing something they could not identify as he hung suspended in the open air.
The man was tall and wide with muscle, with black hair reaching his ears and a small scar decorating the top of his right lip. He was simultaneously oddly but casually dressed in perfectly typical clothes like slacks and a sweater. What was even odder than his casual appearance and black sclera, was his utter lack of cursed energy, but indomitable aura.
Shohei stood examining the man slowly descending from the sky, sure he possessed no cursed energy, but in just utter dismay at his sinister intent.
"Who's that?" Shohei thought, mind no longer even concerned with Dagon or escaping his domain. "Not a sorcerer, surely."
Dagon, who had caught onto their failed scheme to escape, had halted his mad dash, standing suspended on the water's surface, watching the black haired man.
Before a true moment of stillness and silence could be had, the man disappeared from view. He appeared before Maki, a rippling hand clenched around Playful Cloud.
"He's fast!" Shohei stood rattled in shock. "He was just in the air!" Shohei thought he must've been as fast, if not faster than Naobito in that one movement alone. He couldn't gauge the best, as he could never perfectly track Naobito's precise movements with Projection Sorcery.
The man stood there for a brief moment, Playful Cloud wavering between the twos' grasp, but he then flung Maki away like a fly. She landed behind them all, stunned more than anyone.
"And strong?!" Shohei gawked in his head. "No cursed energy still, and he beat Maki in a contest of strength. But she's super human!"
"Maki-san!" Fushiguro cried, losing track of the girl briefly.
Shohei crept back further between Naobito and Nanami, standing over Fushiguro.
"Fushiguro-kun?" Nanami inquired, blood dripping from his hair and head.
"It's no good," Megumi answered, peering down at his feet as he sat on his knees. "The opening is fully sealed. To make things worse, it just figured out our goal."
"I'm glad you're here, Megumi," Shohei greeted his dear friend, gripping his trembling shoulder. Megumi shared a kind nod back.
They four five sorcerers glanced back up at Dagon out at sea.
"We aren't getting another opportunity to open another hole as easily any time soon," Shohei murmured. "I could open my own Domain however. We might overwhelm this one and proceed with caution regarding those two beasts."
Shohei nodded toward Toji and Dagon, who began eyeing each other, squaring off in silence across the open water.
As the stranger prowled past them all, Naobito couldn't peel his eyes off the man.
Naobito quietly gasped to himself, unbelieving, "Toji?"
Shohei might've been the only one to hear Naobito mutter the name so quietly. The name rang some faint bell deep in Shohei's memory though.
Had it been Satoru who had mentioned that name, possibly by accident when talking about the year prior of him adopting Shohei while still in school. Shohei was confident it wasn't a kind memory of Satoru's, especially if it was around his second year at Jujutsu High. He rarely ever talked about that year.
Maybe the name came up when Satoru and Shohei developed his new training method of honing his body through Gravity Field to not need to fight with cursed energy.
Toji stepped off the platform of shadows and wadded to the knee high water, bearing his fangs to Dagon as he raised Playful Cloud in a masterful stance. A stance primed with such explosiveness and tact that Maki looked like a novice with the same cursed tool in her own hands
Shohei swore Dagon could be heard muttering about how the man seemingly had no cursed energy. Summed up along the lines of nothing worth his attention.
Dagon raised his arms to the sky and outcame a writhing sea snake, charging its way to this Toji.
The creature beared down upon him, and in an almost explosion, Toji swung, and all of a sudden, the water forcefully parted around this line of blood and gore that the snake once was.
The sand below the water left visible as Dagon stood upon it, dumbfounded. Before the water could come crashing back into place, Toji was feet away from Dagon, Playful Cloud bashing the curse over the head.
Dagon was blasted through the parted sea, crashing through the water in a geyser.
Toji pursued the curse in a blur, racing across the top of the water. He shoved a palm into the curse's face, then tearing his head askew by ripping at a tentacle.
The man hooked the curse in a closeline extended by Playful cloud, spinning the curse as he threw it across the shore further. A column of sea spray rose from Dagon crashing again.
Skimming across the water faster than any fish, bird, or bug, Toji dogged Dagon's heels. Playful Cloud bashed and hammered Dagon in between intricate and light speed twirls and swings.
One strike sent the curse curling at an angle across the water, it struck so hard.
Toji batted aside a rising wave Dagon tried to hide behind, hooking the curse by the waist with the links of the tool, slingshotting it even further like a ragdoll.
The self produced distance Toji had created gave Dagon a brief window to haphazardly fire half a dozen piranha at the man.
All the critters were intercepted by the midsection of the staff, except for one squeaking by. That fish seemed to latch itself to Toji's face, only for him to spit it aside himself.
The next moment, Dagon no longer had breathing room. He was knocked through another wave. He flung his arms, spawning a swarm of piranha to intercept the pursuing menace.
Playful Cloud trailing behind him like a whip about to crack, Toji met the swarm half way. He barged through it like a freight train, a trail of purple gore left in his wake.
Dagon tried adding another wave to the piranha by conjuring an eel head, but Toji was faster. The staff rammed into his stomach, halting the shikigami.
Dagon's improvisation sparked, the eel split into two others, coiling around the cursed tool and Toji in turn, dragging him below the surface of the water.
Shohei focuses his senses below the surface, giving his all to keep track of the bout as he and the sorcerers stood gawking at the display of strength.
Dozens on top of dozens of piranha swarmed the restricted man. Dagon suspended in the vast body water, watching Toji be devoured.
Dagon fled to the surface as two of the largest sand flea like shikigami emerged from the depths of the ocean. They were sure to make quick work of the overwhelmed man no matter how quick or strong he may be.
The sand fleas surfaced like crashing whales dragging Toji to the surface with them. They went in for the final bite with their massive pincers, Toji still blanketed by piranhas.
A glint of steel shone in the sunlight, and a mist of gore splattered, revealing Toji unscathed. Not even his sweater was torn.
Toji whipped forward Playful Cloud like a belt to a disobedient child, slamming the flea in a massive crash onto the other, submerging them back into the depths.
Shohei wielded Playful Cloud once before to moderate effect. The tool had no real techniques ingrained in it, and instead was pure solid power. For that reason, its strength depended on the wilder's strength, and Shohei had never seen the tool be used so devastatingly.
Waves crashed larger than any, spilling Dagon back to shore and lapping over the on looking sorcerers.
Toji gracefully descended from the air and onto the shore again, his strength or speed seemingly willing him to fall at his own leisure. Dagon crawled to his feet again, his energy more taxed than when the sorcerers ever hurt him.
Toji advanced on his prey, flickering in and out of all their view in a display of speed. He stepped closer and closer in literal blurs.
Dagon raised two overlapping water rings desperately, but Toji whipped the staff, carving through it and onward.
Dagon back peddled but had his shoulder blown apart from the blunt force alone. Another strike crashed into his collar bone, surely shattering it.
Maki and Naobito stood more awestruck than any other sorcerer present, tracking the fight on the edge of their seats.
"Old man," Maki murmured, watching Toji splatter Dagon's blood across the sand with merely one handed swipes. "Who is that?"
Dagon threw a barrage of small fish, only for Toji to slip them like any old punch. Toji was at Dagon's back, rolling over his round shoulders, draping Playful Cloud across his neck.
The next instant Toji had Dagon's head smashing into the heel of his shoes in a splatter.
"A ghost," Noabito summarized in dreadful wonder.
"That's what it is," Shohei's thoughts connected and the picture came together in his mind. "Satoru fought this guy back before he adopted me. I thought he had killed him. Well, Satoru may be the only person who could've killed this guy."
As Maki studied the man's every move with Naobito and Shohei reminisced on how he knew him, Megumi was severely taxed. Infact almost all of them weren't looking the greatest.
"Fushiguro-kun, can you hold out a little longer?" Nanami asked the boy, tracking the fight with his one remaining eye, his attire torn to stress and stained with his blood.
Megumi was heaving several heavy breaths as his nosebleed continued to flow steadily, but he huffed, "Yes."
"I'm sorry," the blonde man apologized. "We're placing our bets on him."
Shohei turned and examined them all. Nanami was torn from head to toe, one arm seemingly not responding and one eye missing. Naobito was missing his whole right arm and upper half of clothes, bleeding from his head. Maki, despite being relatively able bodied still, had scuffs, scapes, and lacerations up and down her body.
Shohei was the only one almost wholly unscathed, not even any bruising or scratches from his scuffle with Dagon. He in fact had not been bitten by a shikigami once since entering the domain.
"I could pull us out of here right now Nanami-san," Shohei offered. "I can try and expand the hole alongside Megumi, or entirely cast my own domain. Dagon's domain has been suspended and fighting Megumi's this whole time."
"No. You're too valuable of an asset here in Shibuya tonight. You could go on to fight another enemy of this curse's caliber on your own, provided you're in the right headspace and don't have us here in your way. The rest of us are almost in no state to continue the fight against another strong opponent, but we can still be of use if we get our wounds tended to. Saving your energy is ideal for later, or maybe if this Toji fellow isn't a real ally. "
"Whatever you say Nanami," Shohei agreed, watching Dagon be endlessly knocked back and down to the ground again and again, Toji now only playing with him. "But I'm not sure if I can handle this guy, full tank or not."
As Dagon was knocked to the ground once again, Toji stood back, raising both ends of Playful Cloud to one another, grinding them as sparks flew. The noise tore through the air and pierced everyone's ear like a crying soul from Hell.
"He's changing Playful Cloud's shape by whittling it against itself." Shohei sat and watched the man carve the two ends to a crude, but wicked point.
Toji raised the impromptu blade to his eye, looked from it to Dagon, and let out the faintest chuckle.
Dagon crawled to his feet once more, his wounds no longer healing at any form of hastened rate. He gasped for air as his grievous shoulder wound dripped violet blood across the sand and down his chest. Blood from his mouth also dribbled through his face.
Toji took up the same crouching position he began this massacre of a fight with, lying in wait to strike like a wild cat, Playful Cloud his lethal fangs.
Dagon seemed to be gathering his thoughts and struggling to form some semblance of a plan. He sprang into the air, hovering far out of Toji's reach and still on the rise.
"He's trying to stall for time until Megumi's domain falters," Shohei cursed, thrusting out a clawed hand to suspend the curse from rising further.
Naobito had beaten the student to the punch however, standing tall atop Dagon's head.
"Of course, you can hover, too, right?" the man bellowed, halting Dagon's escape. "Do I need to say it again?"
Accepting the elderly sorcerer's assistance without a second thought, Toji charged towards Dagon, Playful Cloud's sections somehow balanced atop one another, and vaulted himself through the air. Naobito shoved Dagon into Toji's clutches with a final kick.
Crashing into the curse and wrapping his legs around it, Toji pierced Dagon's raised arms through to his head.
Failing to land a killing blow in that instant, Dagon roared with a second wind, "It's not over yet!"
Toji disagreed with Dagon's upstart, stabbing him in the temple a second time with the other end of the tool.
Not bothering to retract the two ends from Dagon's skull, Toji shattered the chains of the middle section and raised it above his head. And like a blunt guillotine delivering the final blow, Toji brought down the club again and again and again on the curse's leaking skull.
Dagon's final pained cries were masked by squelching of his collapsing head and the spatter of his oozing blood on Toji's face and hands as they both crashed to the ground.
One moment the sorcerer's were watching a monster and a curse plummet to the earth, next they were all in the station atrium they once were passing through.
"The domain!" Maki noted, finding themselves in the cold gray interior of Shibuya in fall.
"Good deal," Shohei sighed, relieved to be free of that hellish island.
The splatter of blood leaking to the floor continued, but behind Shohei. He turned and saw Megumi panting for air, no longer under the strain of contesting domains. He was dripping with sweat and drooling another wave of blood.
Nanami watched over him, but soon turned back to Toji, rising from the disintegrating corpse of Dagon. Shohei returned to watch the man rise, now looking amongst their numbers.
"That curse may be dead," Shohei thought to himself. "But is he our ally or not?"
Scanning their ranks, Toji looked from sorcerer to sorcerer, locking eyes with Shohei.
Not traumatic or irrational fear spiked in Shohei's heart and mind, but primal and instinctual fear, hungry fangs now bared at him. Black eyes peered deep into his own.
Like the shikigami which didn't exist until they already struck, Shohei prepared for Toji bearing down on him in an instant, knowing his drastic speed.
Shohei collapsed his range of sensing down into no more than the few feet surrounding him, and with the automatic response to threats Tunnel Vision possessed, Shohei's cursed energy flared to its maximum output.
"Huh?" Shohei grunted, his arms raised to defend his face, throat, and eyes. Tunnel Vision had just taken every precautionary measure shy of activating his techniques and now Toji was inches from his face.
Like lightning flashing, Shohei's arm tore across his body, parrying the shank carved from Playful Cloud from piercing his chest.
"Not even playing games with me like that damn curse?!" Shohei cried one final thought.
Shohei proceeded to counter attack with an overhand punch with Iguana Talon in hand, aiming for Toji's neck.
Toji tried to backstepped, but Shohei reached for his collar to keep him close for the desperate critical strike. The grown man raised a curious eyebrow like Shohei had done better than expected, but his hungry look returned in no time, and he retaliated.
Toji leaned his head back, Iguana Talon only grazing his cheek. The man swatted aside Shohei's hand from his collar, tearing away his fierce grip as if it were only a toddlers.
His hands dangling uselessly extended in front of him, Shohei had Iguana Talon torn from his grip as Toji disarmed him, flipping him by his wrist to the ground, shattering the floor below him. Lying in a crater, exposed piping by his face, Shohei's blade clattered uselessly to the floor.
"N-" Shohei called before he gargled on his own blood, his nose bashed in flush with his face. Toji raised the blunt end of the staff handle a second time, slamming it down again for good measure.
Shohei blinked the blood spilling in his eyes to see Toji flip the shank, spearing him through the stomach as he kneeled on his chest, his free hand on his throat. Shohei felt the stab clear his body and pierce the floor below like he was nothing more than gelatin.
Shohei had enough of a thought to ponder activating Stygian Void or even its Maximum technique, but a thought was all he could muster. He had been disarmed, flipped, pinned, and stabbed in an instant faster than he saw Toji move his entire fight with Dagon.
Maybe the bloodthirsty man, now no longer clouded by the curse's powerful domain around him, saw how much larger of a threat Shohei really was. The boy was not however powerful enough to withstand this ravenous and precise trouncing.
Shohei couldn't gather a thought to activate a technique or do more than raise his partially free hand to blindly blast Toji off of him, but the man took Sho's hand in his own. Toji's large hands snapped three of Shohei's fingers backwards and then his wrist as he just kept twisting.
Shohei could hear the others vaguely screaming, begging, and charging, but his ears had been filled with a ringing sense he got slammed to the ground.
Stabbing him and destroying his hand and nose was not enough apparently. As Shohei kept fighting, writhing and twisting on the ground under Toji's weight, Toji struck again. Toji back fisted Shohei across the temple, his knuckles shattering part of his skull and blurring his vision in his left, star-like eye.
Sick of beating a dead horse, Toji finally ripped Playful Cloud from Shohei's stomach and raised it above their heads.
Witnessing that last glint of bloodied red steel, Shohei's hearing cleared enough to hear Maki's wail as her crashing footsteps neared. It might've been Nanami and Naobito calling for her to halt.
The only real cohesive words that made it to Shohei's ears were his dear little brother's.
Megumi shouted a desperate final plea. "Please stop!"
Shohei could have sworn it was the sharp end of Playful Cloud rocketing to between his eyes, but then all of a sudden it looked blunt, and the world was black.